Editing Leon Trotsky (section)

=== Fate of Left Oppositionists after Trotsky's exile (1929–1941) ===
[[File:Soviet reaction to Leon Trotsky publication.jpg|thumb|The publication of Trotsky's autobiography ''[[My Life (Leon Trotsky autobiography)|My Life]]'' as reported in the Soviet Union, August 1929. The editors of ''Projector'' magazine titled the item: "On the service of bourgeoisie."]]
After Trotsky's expulsion, Trotskyists within the Soviet Union began to waver. Between 1929 and 1932, most leading Left Opposition members surrendered to Stalin, "admitted their mistakes," and were reinstated in the Communist Party. An initial exception was [[Christian Rakovsky]], who inspired Trotsky from 1929 to 1934 with his refusal to capitulate as state suppression increased. In late 1932, Rakovsky failed to flee the Soviet Union and was exiled to [[Yakutia]] in March 1933. At Trotsky's request, French mathematician and Trotskyist [[Jean Van Heijenoort]], with [[Pierre Frank]], unsuccessfully appealed to influential Soviet author [[Maxim Gorky]] to intervene for Rakovsky, boarding Gorky's ship near Constantinople.<ref name="yedlin">Tova Yedlin, ''Maxim Gorky: A Political Biography'', Praeger/Greenwood, [[Westport, Connecticut|Westport]], 1992, pp. 201–02. {{ISBN|978-0275966058}}</ref> According to Heijenoort, they only met Gorky's son, Maxim Peshkov, who promised to pass on their request.<ref name="yedlin" /> Rakovsky was the last prominent Trotskyist to capitulate, in April 1934. His letter to ''Pravda'', titled ''There Should Be No Mercy'', depicted Trotsky and his supporters as "agents of the German [[Gestapo]]".{{sfn|Medvedev|1976|p=169}} Rakovsky was appointed to high office in the Commissariat for Health and allowed to return to Moscow, also serving as Soviet ambassador to Japan in 1935.{{sfn|Feofanov|Barry|1995|p=22}} However, he was implicated in allegations concerning [[Sergey Kirov]]'s murder and was arrested and imprisoned in late 1937 during the Great Purge.<ref name="faganoppexile">Fagan, Gus; Biographical Introduction to Christian Rakovsky; chapter ''[https://www.marxists.org/archive/rakovsky/biog/biog5.htm Opposition and Exile] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180715212757/https://www.marxists.org/archive/rakovsky/biog/biog5.htm |date=15 July 2018}}''</ref>

Almost all Trotskyists remaining in the Soviet Union were executed in the Great Purges of 1936–1938. Rakovsky survived until the [[Medvedev Forest massacre]] of September 1941, where he was shot with 156 other prisoners on Stalin's orders, less than three months into the [[Axis invasion of the Soviet Union]]. Trotsky's sister and Kamenev's first wife, [[Olga Kameneva]], was also among the Medvedev Forest victims.{{sfn|Parrish|1996|p=69}}